HSBC delays

HSBC & First Direct Payment Delays

Previously, customers who bank with HSBC & First direct have reported receiving poor-quality service to us. Below are two very frequent occurrences which will almost certainly be the reason for any delay in your payment reaching one of our brokers.

Please see below for further information on our customers' experiences. As such, the information below may not be current, but we hope that you find it helpful.

Making payments after 6pm

If you make a payment to a non-HSBC account or to a new payee, the online banking will tell you that the payment cannot be made today. If you phoned their customer service department about it they tell you it is because the receiving bank will not accept the payment until the following morning. This information is false as all other banks have no problem sending to each other through the evening.

These payments will be debited from your account around 8am and, subject to fraud checks, arrive at their destination just after 9am.

Delayed payments

HSBC and First Direct are very well known for their payment delays and they tend to process payments on the hour.

If you try and call them within 2 hours of making the payment, their customer services department will tell you that faster payments can take up to 2 hours to go through.

If you call up after the two hours has passed, they will tell you that the payment has been processed even if you specifically ask them whether it has been held for fraud and security checks (which happens frequently). They even go so far as to say that the receiving bank must be doing payment checks before releasing the payment to the destination account. If this happens then we would see that the payment had arrived and had been held for checks.

Unfortunately, the reality here is that their staff are poorly trained and the payment will be with their fraud and security team for checks. You can either wait out the delay or you could speak to their fraud and security department directly on 0345 266 9337. Once they have confirmed that it has indeed been held by them, they will process it and state that it will take up to two hours to credit the account. The reality is that it will be between 1-2 hours from when they've told you this. HSBC/First direct tend to only process their payments on/shortly after the hour too.

If this happens to you and they lie to you as above, you have every right to put in a complaint to them (and the Financial Ombudsman) as its unacceptable behaviour by an established bank like them.

Summary

We try our best to help and guide you through the inefficiencies of the banking system but, as above has shown above, solving this is often out of our hands. We look forward to a time when such banking frustrations are a thing of the past.